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Posts tagged fedora
multiple mouse / keyboard in linux
Oct 4th
4 mouse cursors on a single screen
few days ago i came upon an article about human computer interactions which mentioned different ways we interact with computes and how we will interact with computers in future, the article instantly reminded me of MPX, now i dont know how many of you remember MPX which enabled interaction of multiple mouse/keyboards in linux. Xserver 1.7 which is used in most of the disto’s was released with MPX, so i decided to find out how to make it work on my existing Fedora 13 box, and using it is pretty simple you just need to use xinput and configure X for multiple input, for that you first need to install xinput, on fedora it is provided by the package “xorg-x11-apps” just do a
[ankur@x144 ankur]# yum install xorg-x11-apps -y
and you are done, for other distro’s i guess there sould be a similar package, after the install we need to find what all is plugged in to the computer, for that we do “xinput list”
[ankur@x144 ankur]# xinput list ⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)] ⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)] ⎜ ↳ PS/2 Mouse id=14 [slave pointer (2)] ⎜ ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint id=15 [slave pointer (2)] ⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)] ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Video Bus id=6 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Power Button id=7 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Sleep Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Laptop Integrated Webcam id=9 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=13 [slave keyboard (3)] ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys id=16 [slave keyboard (3)]
this returns a list of all the input devices, i am running this on my laptop so you can see “AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint” and “AT Translated Set 2 keyboard” which are my laptop’s mouse and keyboard, to enable multiple keyboard/mouse i will create a group and move my laptops mouse and keyboard to the group,
[ankur@x144 ankur]# xinput create-master main
[ankur@x144 ankur]# xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ PS/2 Mouse id=14 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ AlpsPS/2 ALPS GlidePoint id=15 [slave pointer (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]
↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Video Bus id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Power Button id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Sleep Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Laptop Integrated Webcam id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=13 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Dell WMI hotkeys id=16 [slave keyboard (3)]
⎡ main pointer id=10 [master pointer (11)]
⎜ ↳ laptop XTEST pointer id=12 [slave pointer (10)]
⎣ main keyboard id=11 [master keyboard (10)]
↳ laptop XTEST keyboard id=17 [slave keyboard (11)]
above i created a group by the name “main”, you can see a second mouse cursor on screen as soon as you do this, to make both these mouse/keyboard active i will move my laptop’s mouse (id-> 15) and keyboard (id-> 13) to this newly created group
[ankur@x144 ankur]# xinput reattach 15 10 [ankur@x144 ankur]# xinput reattach 13 11
now if i connect an external mouse and keyboard to my laptop i can see both working simultaneously, if you want multiple (more then 2) mouse and keyboards to work, you can create a separate group for them and move them to that group in a similar manner.
after doing this I was not able to find any benefit of using multiple mouse/keyboard on a laptop but it will make sense when you have multi monitor setup and multiple users trying to use the same machine simultaneously.
How Manipal got its first Linux (fedora) server
Jun 25th
It all started with a failing Student’s Teacher Feedback System, designed by few fourth year students of my college, in oct-nov 2008 the system was not able to scale and everything was reverted back to paper, it was then when i was contacted by a teacher from my Department ( Information and Communication Technology ), regarding if i can improve it.
i asked DJ if he wants to join me and after few weeks of coding there it was Manipal university’s first (working) Feedback System, when the point of hosting it came, i was surprised to find Manipal University has no Linux servers, i mean come on no Linux what are you people click sys admins, then we decided to setup our own server in the department, thus giving Manipal university its first Linux ( fedora 10 ) server.
currently it just hosts the Feedback System, but we are planning to use it as local ( internal ) fedora repository mirror, we need permission from the WiFi provider ION because almost all the students use only WiFi and not LAN, last time we tried we were denied by saying ” You are a threat to our network “, lets see how it goes this time. we will also require people to manage it but i think this can be handled very well by LUG Manipal, some pics
Fedora 10 server in Manipal
Fedora 10 server in Manipal
PS – i am looking for a way to convince them that setting up a mirror will be helpful for them as well as students can anyone suggest me how to go about it??
Using Apple Keyboard in Linux (Fedora)
Feb 19th
My Apple Keyboard
Few Days Ago i received my Apple Keyboard and i am enjoying typing on it, but having to hold down the Fn key then tap one of the F-keys to get F-keys working was irritating.
a simple solution to get it working just add this to your /etc/rc.local file
echo 2 > /sys/module/hid_apple/parameters/fnmodeand F-keys will start to work properly, enjoy
Update :- update for recent kernels,
ION proxy login problem
Feb 16th
a few days ago ION (WiFi provider in Manipal University) started an ISA based proxy using NTLM authentication, which according to them was a client install!!! some people were facing problem with it, like their browsers were asking for authentication (login) again and again, and repositories were not working on Linux.
So here is a simple screencast with solution for this problem it works great in Linux (esp. Fedora) i have also included configuring yum here, if someone wants to use apt-get (debian/ubuntu) they can do
export http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:5865
Ok coming to the main point, go and download http://sourceforge.net/projects/ntlmaps/ and then watch the video here
People on windows can install python from here and then follow the steps
ION proxy problem solved
Note:- If You face any problem please post back here….
PS:- every thing in Text form coming soon… (i am lazy)
Using YUM with a proxy Fedora
Sep 27th
Finally i got a chance to use the awesome LAN at the college campus and it was a very good time to update the packages, but there was a problem it had a proxy, so i typed man yum and was pointed at man yum.conf and there it was a simple solution, all the you need to do is just edit the yum.conf file as root
type
su
enter your root password now type
nano /etc/yum.conf
here add a line
proxy = http://address:port
replace the above code with the address you need like 172.16.19.10 and port 80 in my case and all will work just fine
Enjoy!!!
Ankur Shrivastava
Dell XPS 1530
Jul 12th
Finally after waiting for a long time my Dell XPS 1530 arrived yesterday and it really rockss, i was supposed to get it on 3rd July but continuous delay were caused by curfew in Indore and some other factors.
The Config is
Processor : Intel C2D T8100 - 2.1GHz
RAM : 3GB 667MHz Dual Channel
Graphics Card : GeForce 8600GT 256 MB
Screen : 15.4" WXGA+ ( 1440x900 )
WiFI card : Intel 4965 802.11n
OS : Windows Vista Home Preminum ( removed after an hour )
It looks gr8 far better then what i previously owned, HP 6515b which was given by my college MIT, Manipal.
As soon as i received my Dell first think i did was to run Windows Performance Index and the score came out to be 5.0 with 5.0 being the lowest score because of my 3GB RAM!!!
I tried some Windows Media Centre and then it was time to say vista good bye and say hello to Fedora 9, the install went without a hitch but when i booted i that my mouse was not working, a quick search on forums and i had the solution add i8042.nomux=1 as a kernel parameter and every thing was working, WiFi, LAN all worked out of the box, some yum install and my new notebook was ready to rock and roll
so here they are x144 and x121
PS – i will be heading back to manipal on 16th, waiting for a really rocking sem……….
Firefox 3 is here!!!!!!!
Jun 18th
So Finally after a delay of about 1.5 hours Firefox 3 is here and the download link is here World Record here we come
PS – No matter how many people download it will anyway be a world record coz its the first time a record of this type is being done
MinWin and Windows 7 – You got it all wrong
Jun 16th
Somedays ago when i was traveling to Bangalore from Manipal in the Bus i read a tweet about MinWin from Aditya and day after that he tweeted this “aditya: @Ankur MinWin exists in Vista too. I’m still not buying the ‘modular OS’ theory, and from I’ve seen, W7 keeps me happy about buying a Mac 
” now i know he is a big mac fanboy but that made me think how many people are thinking that MinWin is a part of Windows 7 ( when ever it comes ) well its not, just see this and notice
Now, this is an internal only - you won’t see us productizing this - but you could imagine this being used as the basis for products in the future. This is the Windows 7 source code base, and it’s about 25 megs on disk. Compare that to the four gigs on disk that the full Windows Vista takes up. We don’t have a graphics subsystem other than text in this particular build
I also noticed this in Wikipedia
A minimalistic variation of the Windows kernel, known as MinWin, was being developed for use in Windows 7
Come on people try to understand this MinWin in not something made exclusively for Windows 7, rather The code from Windows 7 Kernel was taken and slimmed down to make MinWin, so Windows 7 will be like addition of more crap over Vista
Now who will tell them them and them
Anyways i am Happy with my Fedora 9 Laptop……..
PS – Aditya i have nothing against you buddy
Hello Planet Fedora
Jun 6th
Hi everyone!
This is my first post on Planet Fedora so i think i should introduce myself
My name is Ankur Shrivastava, i am doing my BE-IT, I have been running linux since 2004-2005 and Fedora is what i really love, anyway you will be seeing me around……….
Making a local Ubuntu / Debian repository on Fedora
Dec 24th
So now i know how to make a local Ubuntu / Debian LAN repository on Fedora using apt-cacher, apt-cacher as the name says caches all the packages with it when ever any client requests a package from it, it checks if the package that is there with it is latest or not if it is then it serves that package else it downloads the package and serves it, but well i am not discussing what it does here but how to set it up on Fedora 8, so lets begin
for apt-cacher to work you need to have a apache server installed and the source of apt-cacher which can be downloaded from here just and extract it and follow the following step as root
mv apt-cacher-1.5.3 /usr/share/apt-cacher
here 1.5.3 was the latest package during my writing, then rename apache.conf to /etc/httpd/conf.d/apt-cacher.conf and set the permisions
cd /usr/share/apt-cacher
mv apache.conf /etc/httpd/conf.d/apt-cacher.conf
chmod 644 /etc/httpd/conf.d/apt-cacher.conf
chown root:root /etc/httpd/conf.d/apt-cacher.conf
now just restart apache
/etc/init.d/httpd restart
now rename apt-cacher2 to apt-cacher and move all the .conf files to /etc/apt-cacher/
mv apt-cacher2 apt-cacher
mkdir /etc/apt-cacher
mv *.conf /etc/apt-cacher/
now edit /etc/httpd/conf.d/apt-cacher.conf and edit user and group to apache
gedit /etc/httpd/conf.d/apt-cacher.conf
after doing that run install.pl
./install.pl
now make /var/cache/apt-cacher and /var/log/apt-cacher owned by apache
chown -R apache /var/cache/apt-cacher
chown -R apache /var/log/apt-cacher
all done just goto http://yourip/apt-cacher and every thing should work fine, if it does not then check /var/log/http/error_log for what went wrong and dont forget to forward the port 3142 (default) so that everyone can access it
you can see how to configure it here and since you are on Fedora you will have to modify some steps a little
enjoy
Ankur Shrivastava
